Elia Kazan Quotes

As a director, I never feel that I have the answers.

For me, the movie's always evolving as I'm doing it. I throw things in as we shoot, and I take things out as we go. I want to create a whole life and then select the pieces that best sort of describe it later, you know? So there's a lot of wastage when I make a film.

The key is, if you're not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.

I film quite a bit of footage, then edit. Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always 'let it keep rolling.'

I'm not a career filmmaker. I just like to do things that I still kind of believe in and because of that you just never know what's going to happen next. It doesn't matter if it's been a good year or a bad year: next year, there's no telling what it will be like.

I leave a lot open so I can fill it in later. If I don't have any ideas right away, I can fill it in later.

No dance has ever turned out the way I thought it would, because I trust enough that I can start something with some ideas and then it takes itself somewhere.

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

I think all my films have a different journey. Therefore, I take it as it comes.

I don't like to plan anything ever because it never seems to work. I'm just really...let's just get this film out and see how this one does.

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.

With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.

My directing style has changed over the years. I allow things to breathe a lot more.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I'm in no hurry to get anywhere. I don't have any plans. I don't have a map. If you did in this business, you'd destroy yourself.

The writing is really hard. You're alone. It really pulls it out of you. You pull it out of your head. But when you're a director, you're shopping - you're picking this actor, you're picking this scene. It's like the most intense kinetic high-speed shopping of all time. You sit in a chair and it will all come rushing at you like a wind tunnel.

The funny thing about directing is that you have your own opinions, but it's a collaboration. Directing is a group effort. Even though you might think something works, the smartest thing you can do as a director is try and weigh the opinions of the people around you.

Eventually, everyone said, Why don't you direct? It would save time. And that's how it started.

Sometimes you don't want to get married too much to a lot of rehearsing, I feel, when it comes to film, because there's so many technicalities. So if I'm in my head, I've gotten settled on something, I'm gonna have to change it if I get there and something was set that's completely different.

I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.

The fact is I'm an opportunist. I'll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I'm searching for an idea that works.

I think there's always this idea in your head, but you have to allow the film to take its own course.

I'm always surprised at what I actually end up doing because I don't have a strategy or a game plan, especially now that I'm making my own choices.

To be a good director, you have to spend a lot of time on actual sets, but today, there's a lot of people who spend a lot of time in dark rooms writing a script, and they'll go in and tell the story to some suit at a studio who says, 'Okay, this is great, let's go.' But that doesn't necessarily mean you know what to do once you're on set.